Peter Phillips
(British, born 1939)

Peter Phillips (British, b.1939) is one of the pioneers of the Pop Art movement. He worked in many different mediums, including oils on canvas, multimedia compositions, collages, sculptures, and architecture. He studied at Birmingham School of Art and the Royal College of Art. His works, including For Men Only-Starring MM and BB, INsuperSET, and One Five Times/Sharp Shooter, helped to define Pop Art in the early 1960s. His work is composed of vibrant colors and readily recognizable images taken from daily life.

In 1964, Phillips received the Harkness Fellowship and moved to New York. From 1964 to 1966, he lived in New York and traveled America with his friend, sculptor Allen Jones (English, b.1937). While in America, Phillips worked alongside Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987), Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997), and James Rosenquist (American, b.1933). In 1965, Phillips held his first solo exhibition at the Kornblee Gallery in New York. He returned to Europe a year later. Throughout the 1970s, Phillips made frequent trips to Africa, the Far East, and the United States. In 1972, Phillips had a retrospective at the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster. He had another in 1976 at the Tate Gallery, London. In 1981, Phillips traveled to Australia; he had many shows around the country in 1982 and 1983. Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Phillips lived and worked Majorca, Spain. In the 1990s, Phillips returned to North America and held exhibitions in Montreal, Boston, New York, and Houston. In 1998, his work was shown at the Freedom on Choices exhibition in London.

Phillips’s wife, Claude-Marion Phillips, died of cancer in 2003. The artist held an exhibition dedicated to her at Whitford Fine Art in London in 2004. During that same year, he was featured at the Pop Art UK group exhibition at Galleriea Civica di Modena, Italy. Phillips currently lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. He continues to paint and exhibit. He often travels around the world to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sydney, as well as Central and South America.

Timeline

1939

Born in Birmingham, England

1953–1955

Studied at Moseley Road Secondary School of Art, Birmingham

1955–1959

Studied at Birmingham College of Art

1959–1962

Studied at the Royal College of Art

1962–1963

Taught at the Coventry College of Art and the Birmingham College of Art

1963

Represented at the Paris Biennale

1964

His work was included in the Pop Art exhibition shown at the Hague, Vienna and Berlin